Stealing, properly so called, is almost unknown in the mountains. There are of course a good many things that are practically held in common, and which you take when you need, such as pasturage for instance; but theft is very rare and punished with exemplary severity. A father of unusually Roman disposition has actually been known to assent to the death sentence passed on his son when that young man had so far disgraced himself as to steal. It must be owned, however, that death was only adjudged in this case because nobody could think of any alternative. No prison was available; and yet something must be done under the circumstances; so what was there for it but to shoot the man? The Patriarch forbade that penalty, and the unworthy mountaineer was only banished from his valley. It is of course clearly understood in Hakkiari--and one hopes that the English reader understands it also--that robbery and theft are not at all the same thing. Any gentleman may go on the raid. His plunder is his lawful property, and his exploit a source of legitimate pride. In fact, their code is exactly similar to that of another thorough gentleman, Evan Dhu Maccombich; "He that steals a cow from a poor widow is a thief, but he that lifts a herd of cattle from the Sassenach is a gentleman drover." The good folk of Tyari have been in the habit for generations of imitating the heroes of another of Scott's novels in these matters; for a tithe of all the plunder got in raids went always to the Church of Mart Miriam (Lady Mary, _i.e._ the Blessed Virgin), in the valley of Walto. "They paid tithe on every drove they took from the south; and if they were something lightly come by, and their confessor knew his business, I have known them make the tithe a seventh." Alas, however, those days are passing; and though the devotion of the men of Tyari is as good as ever, the profits of raids are not what they were. One case, indeed, is recorded (his Holiness the Patriarch is our authority for the tale) when the raiders had some scruples about disposing of their spoil. The heroes of the incident were the men of Diz valley, who had successfully lifted a cow from some Kurdish neighbours, and were proposing that she should furnish a sumptuous Christmas banquet. Some scrupulous soul, however, had grave doubts whether the beast, having been Mussulman property so lately, was clean enough for a religious purpose of that kind.[135] The worthy rector of Diz rose to the occasion when this religious difficulty was put before him. _Rabbi qasha_ exorcised the cow; and so was honoured with an invitation to the banquet at which she subsequently figured as the _pièce de resistance_!